19th February, 2016
A bus hit a cargo truck north of Ghana’s second city Kumasi overnight, killing 71 people in the West African country’s deadliest road crash for years.
Regional Police Chief, Maxwell Atingane, said the head-on crash, which left 13 people seriously injured, occurred 420 km (260 miles) north of the capital Accra.
“A Metro Mass Transit coach bound for the northern town of Tamale from the city of Kumasi hit a truck loaded with boxes of tomatoes.
“Many of the passengers on the bus died on the spot,” Atingane said.
Atingane said initial reports suggested a mechanical failure on the bus caused the accident, but that police were investigating.
A resident, George Blah, who witnessed the crash, said the scene was “pathetic and gory” with passengers trapped in the bus wreckage.
“There were human bodies strewn around,” Blah said.
Ghana, like many other African countries, had a relatively high rate of road deaths due in part to narrow and poorly constructed roads, failure by drivers to respect speed limits and inadequate vehicle maintenance.
Bismark Fosu, a medical director at the Kintampo hospital, said some of the injured had been evacuated by air for treatment in Kumasi, Ghana’s second city.
President John Mahama had sent a tweet expressing condolences over the deaths.
Received the sad news of an accident involving a M.M.T. Bus on the Kintampo- Tamale road. Condolences to those who've lost loved ones.
— John Dramani Mahama (@JDMahama) February 17, 2016
Emergency services working to attend to injured passengers in the M.M.T. Bus accident on the Kintampo- Tamale road. Very sad news.
— John Dramani Mahama (@JDMahama) February 17, 2016